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--- US Secretary of State John Kerry said it would be "deeply troubling" if it became clear that China had "wilfully" allowed him to fly out of Hong Kong. ---

--- US Secretary of State John Kerry said it would be "deeply troubling" if it became clear that China had "wilfully" allowed him to fly out of Hong Kong. --- As a generally pro US European I have to wonder if the US realizes the extent of the PR disaster it is creating with each passing statement. I mean what does this idle threat really accomplish? It makes China look good, it makes the states look like the bully and it carries absolutely zero weight. If anything it just makes China look stronger internationally.

ra 13y ago
It makes China look like a good world citizen and the US look like a self righteous sabre rattling bully.
- threeseed 13y ago
  Well only if you are incredibly ignorant or have selective amnesia. China is far, far from a good world citizen. They commit some of the worst human rights abuses, have rampant censorship and lest we forget their system of government is hardly democratic.
  - gwgarry 13y ago
    Kettle meet pot. The different being overt vs. covert.
  - rimantas 13y ago
    From where I sit US does not look that much different. Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition, drone, all this PRISM stuff.
  - alistair77 13y ago
    I agree. But the second part of the statement is still true, "the US look like a self righteous sabre rattling bully"
  - veidr 13y ago
    I think "it makes China look better" would be more accurate. China is a brutal[1] totalitarian regime without the rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, or basic civil rights that people in much of the developed world take for granted. But over the past 12 years, the USA looks increasingly like a brutal[2] authoritarian regime without the rule of law, an informed electorate, or basic civil rights that people in much of the developed world take for granted. That doesn't make China look good. But it makes China look a whole lot more normal as a powerful nation. [1]: torture, secret prisons, indefinite detention without trial, forced abortions, etc [2]: torture, secret prisons, indefinite detention without trial, assassination, lack of basic healthcare, etc
    - michas 13y ago
      That's because leaders of US and China are both socialists. Similarities between the two will gradually increase
  - Isofarro 13y ago
    The US has lost it's moral high ground over freedom and privacy, it's bordering on hypocritical. We know the Chinese government at the national level can see at any time what is going on in Chinese variants of social networking sites (from the basis that all these servers are typically hosted in Beijing). What we didn't know was the US are doing this at a global level, and they have been trying to keep it secret all this time. That's something we did not realistically expect. In this particular instance, the US is no better than China in respecting and protecting the privacy of individuals, and not impinging on their freedoms. Snowden did the US citizens and the world a favour by exposing Prism. Now we can do something about it. Now we can seriously decide how important our privacy is. We see how deep the rabbit hole is. That's a starting point to correcting this.
  - mmariani 13y ago
    Well only if you are incredibly ignorant or have selective amnesia. The US is far, far from a good world citizen. They commit some of the worst human rights abuses, have rampant censorship and lest we forget their system of government is hardly democratic. PS: apart from the achromatic base colors, nothing in life is that black and white.
  - ra 13y ago
    To clarify, I was referring to the public statements made by China and the US regarding Snowdon and his revelations (you know, this thread?). Also I sad, 'look like'.
- chj 13y ago
  China doesn't look any better, US OTOH looks much worse right now.
corin_ 13y ago
> It makes China look good, it makes the states look like the bully Is it this specific statement that does that, or their whole policy? They've chosen to fight Snowden, so at this point any statements they make are unlikely to change minds, but they do help keep the support of people who already think of Snowden as a traitor. It's like an awful lot of politics, where the aim isn't to change minds, the aim is to make sure the minds who agree with you don't forget to support you.
Sven7 13y ago
Give me a break. You think anyone is going to care next week when the attention of the media will shift, as it always does, to whatever else is most eyeball baiting, elsewhere in the world. The baseline strategy has been more or less the same. Hide Obama from the press. Send out robotic talking heads to spew about anything remotely relevant to the issue at hand. And wait for the press to get distracted by something else. I am racking my brain to come up with an incident that was under the media spotlight that actually pushed the Govt. to act.
- tokenizer 13y ago
  Well as a foreigner, this whole entire debacle has changed my entire outlook on the US. I don't have faith in your institutions anymore at all. I understand the public at large will not feel this way, and will simply pass to the next distraction shortly, but this lack of faith I've built up, is going to stay with me for a while. So instead of a happy Canadian tuning in to your elections and being extremely excited about the future like I was in 2008, I truly believe that your entire system is completely hopeless. No true change can come out of it.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - epistasis 13y ago
    As a site filled with entrepeneurs (should that be past tense these days?), I would hope HN readers realize how much this ordeal is damaging the prospects of us US-based entrepeneurs to expand to foreign markets, particularly if our business deals with anything that people don't want in random government officials' hands.
    - sigkill 13y ago
      My interaction with Americans has not been in a professional setting, but my opinion of them is that they're very unknowledgeable about things happening outside their country. This is not a slander, but they genuinely think that since they're Americans, they need to know only about their country. I do not blame them because when I was there I noticed that all news channels focused only on news in America. There wasn't even a half hour of 'world news' at anytime one would be free to watch the news. This is quite sad because the TV was meant as a way to inform the common people of things happening far away. Granted, the present generation can hop on to websites and read stuff there but honestly, the generation that actually votes and practically decides who's in the government are the ones who're not getting broad exposure to all news.
chaz 13y ago
International politics is a never-ending chain of negotiations about all kinds of issues. Obama + Kerry aren't going retaliate directly, but they'll certainly keep this in mind the next time China asks for something and the US may not be very understanding. It might be a trade negotiation. Or it might be the US getting involved in Taiwan-China relations. Or the next extradition request from China. Lots of ways this can play out in the long term.
- Isofarro 13y ago
  The US doesn't have the strong hand it had a few weeks ago: catching China redhanded breaking into US servers. That was a bigger trump, until the US got caught doing the very same thing. The "you didn't give us Snowden" card isn't going to be as impressive, especially in an international context. With the US treatment of Bradley Manning, that card isn't really a playable one. The humble pie of being outed as hypocrites over hacking - that setback is going to take a while to overcome. It's possible China have no real involvement in this - plausible deniability. Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region, meaning they are largely left alone in legal matters (except perhaps in exceptional matters - which Snowden, for all the news coverage, isn't).
  - chaz 13y ago
    According to a WashPo article, they indicate that HK officials "quietly encouraged" Snowden to leave. They also name an HK official who is "sympathetic to Beijing" as the one to have delayed the US's extradition request, which never made it to a judge. Regardless of the extent of China's involvement, it sounds like HK really didn't want to get involved. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/details-of-snowdens-stay-in-hong-kong/2013/06/24/3e334fce-dd04-11e2-bd83-e99e43c336ed_story.html?tid=pm_pop http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/detail...
cema 13y ago
I have to wonder if the US realizes the extent of the PR disaster Is "the US" the government of the US or the people of the US? Big difference.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

ra 13y ago

It makes China look like a good world citizen and the US look like a self righteous sabre rattling bully.

threeseed 13y ago
Well only if you are incredibly ignorant or have selective amnesia. China is far, far from a good world citizen. They commit some of the worst human rights abuses, have rampant censorship and lest we forget their system of government is hardly democratic.
- gwgarry 13y ago
  Kettle meet pot. The different being overt vs. covert.
- rimantas 13y ago
  From where I sit US does not look that much different. Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition, drone, all this PRISM stuff.
- alistair77 13y ago
  I agree. But the second part of the statement is still true, "the US look like a self righteous sabre rattling bully"
- veidr 13y ago
  I think "it makes China look better" would be more accurate. China is a brutal[1] totalitarian regime without the rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, or basic civil rights that people in much of the developed world take for granted. But over the past 12 years, the USA looks increasingly like a brutal[2] authoritarian regime without the rule of law, an informed electorate, or basic civil rights that people in much of the developed world take for granted. That doesn't make China look good. But it makes China look a whole lot more normal as a powerful nation. [1]: torture, secret prisons, indefinite detention without trial, forced abortions, etc [2]: torture, secret prisons, indefinite detention without trial, assassination, lack of basic healthcare, etc
  - michas 13y ago
    That's because leaders of US and China are both socialists. Similarities between the two will gradually increase
- Isofarro 13y ago
  The US has lost it's moral high ground over freedom and privacy, it's bordering on hypocritical. We know the Chinese government at the national level can see at any time what is going on in Chinese variants of social networking sites (from the basis that all these servers are typically hosted in Beijing). What we didn't know was the US are doing this at a global level, and they have been trying to keep it secret all this time. That's something we did not realistically expect. In this particular instance, the US is no better than China in respecting and protecting the privacy of individuals, and not impinging on their freedoms. Snowden did the US citizens and the world a favour by exposing Prism. Now we can do something about it. Now we can seriously decide how important our privacy is. We see how deep the rabbit hole is. That's a starting point to correcting this.
- mmariani 13y ago
  Well only if you are incredibly ignorant or have selective amnesia. The US is far, far from a good world citizen. They commit some of the worst human rights abuses, have rampant censorship and lest we forget their system of government is hardly democratic. PS: apart from the achromatic base colors, nothing in life is that black and white.
- ra 13y ago
  To clarify, I was referring to the public statements made by China and the US regarding Snowdon and his revelations (you know, this thread?). Also I sad, 'look like'.
chj 13y ago
China doesn't look any better, US OTOH looks much worse right now.

corin_ 13y ago

> It makes China look good, it makes the states look like the bully Is it this specific statement that does that, or their whole policy? They've chosen to fight Snowden, so at this point any statements they make are unlikely to change minds, but they do help keep the support of people who already think of Snowden as a traitor. It's like an awful lot of politics, where the aim isn't to change minds, the aim is to make sure the minds who agree with you don't forget to support you.

Sven7 13y ago

Give me a break. You think anyone is going to care next week when the attention of the media will shift, as it always does, to whatever else is most eyeball baiting, elsewhere in the world. The baseline strategy has been more or less the same. Hide Obama from the press. Send out robotic talking heads to spew about anything remotely relevant to the issue at hand. And wait for the press to get distracted by something else. I am racking my brain to come up with an incident that was under the media spotlight that actually pushed the Govt. to act.

tokenizer 13y ago
Well as a foreigner, this whole entire debacle has changed my entire outlook on the US. I don't have faith in your institutions anymore at all. I understand the public at large will not feel this way, and will simply pass to the next distraction shortly, but this lack of faith I've built up, is going to stay with me for a while. So instead of a happy Canadian tuning in to your elections and being extremely excited about the future like I was in 2008, I truly believe that your entire system is completely hopeless. No true change can come out of it.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- epistasis 13y ago
  As a site filled with entrepeneurs (should that be past tense these days?), I would hope HN readers realize how much this ordeal is damaging the prospects of us US-based entrepeneurs to expand to foreign markets, particularly if our business deals with anything that people don't want in random government officials' hands.
  - sigkill 13y ago
    My interaction with Americans has not been in a professional setting, but my opinion of them is that they're very unknowledgeable about things happening outside their country. This is not a slander, but they genuinely think that since they're Americans, they need to know only about their country. I do not blame them because when I was there I noticed that all news channels focused only on news in America. There wasn't even a half hour of 'world news' at anytime one would be free to watch the news. This is quite sad because the TV was meant as a way to inform the common people of things happening far away. Granted, the present generation can hop on to websites and read stuff there but honestly, the generation that actually votes and practically decides who's in the government are the ones who're not getting broad exposure to all news.

chaz 13y ago

International politics is a never-ending chain of negotiations about all kinds of issues. Obama + Kerry aren't going retaliate directly, but they'll certainly keep this in mind the next time China asks for something and the US may not be very understanding. It might be a trade negotiation. Or it might be the US getting involved in Taiwan-China relations. Or the next extradition request from China. Lots of ways this can play out in the long term.

Isofarro 13y ago
The US doesn't have the strong hand it had a few weeks ago: catching China redhanded breaking into US servers. That was a bigger trump, until the US got caught doing the very same thing. The "you didn't give us Snowden" card isn't going to be as impressive, especially in an international context. With the US treatment of Bradley Manning, that card isn't really a playable one. The humble pie of being outed as hypocrites over hacking - that setback is going to take a while to overcome. It's possible China have no real involvement in this - plausible deniability. Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region, meaning they are largely left alone in legal matters (except perhaps in exceptional matters - which Snowden, for all the news coverage, isn't).
- chaz 13y ago
  According to a WashPo article, they indicate that HK officials "quietly encouraged" Snowden to leave. They also name an HK official who is "sympathetic to Beijing" as the one to have delayed the US's extradition request, which never made it to a judge. Regardless of the extent of China's involvement, it sounds like HK really didn't want to get involved. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/details-of-snowdens-stay-in-hong-kong/2013/06/24/3e334fce-dd04-11e2-bd83-e99e43c336ed_story.html?tid=pm_pop http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/detail...

cema 13y ago

I have to wonder if the US realizes the extent of the PR disaster Is "the US" the government of the US or the people of the US? Big difference.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]